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Thursday, January 15, 2015

I have
participated in several reading challenges, but this one: Asia and Pacific Reading Challenge 2015 is hosted by my
fellow Indonesian blogger, Helvry—he’s a history and philosophy freak just like
me, haha! And because I have at least one book on my reading list that would be
eligible for this challenge, I decided to participate.

The
challenge is to read one book or more on Asia Pacific history, be it non-fiction
or historical fiction, as long as the setting is in Asia Pacific. I will read
this book:

Empress by
Shan Sa

It’s a
historical fiction of Empress Wu, the first and only female emperor of China,
from Tang Dynasty.

I might add
another book (perhaps Max Havelaar) along the way, but it depends on how I
would deal with my reading schedule.

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

It’s said
that “Behind every great man there’s a great woman”—in Ernest Hemingway’s case,
Hadley Richardson was that great woman. Hadley was Hemingway’s first wife; he
loved her very much, but somehow his troubled and unstable soul—and perhaps the
corrupted age they lived in—torn out their happy marriage. The Paris Wife is a fictional story of their lives, written from
Hadley’s side, but Paula McLain told it closely following the historical facts,
which made this book very interesting.

Hadley
Richardson was twenty eight on October 1920, a plain young woman with a plain
and boring life who was still mourning over her mother’s death, when she first
met a ‘beautiful boy with brown eyes’ whom introduced himself as Ernest
Hemingway. Hemingway was then a war veteran, and was starting a literary career
by writing for magazines. It’s obvious from the beginning that he had ambition
to be a reputable writer. Shortly they fell in love, got married, and lived in
a small apartment in Paris.

Living in Paris
during the Jazz Age meant paradise for young talented writers or artists, but
it’s not suitable for a conservative young woman like Hadley. But Hadley loved
Ernest so much, that she dedicated herself to bring her husband’s career to the
top. Accompanying Ernest, Hadley tried to mingle with the rising writers at
that time, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, etc. Ernest
got the safety and stability feeling alongside Hadley, that he could pound his
way to what his talent could produce; while Hadley got the man she loved very
much—maybe too much. Everything should have got on very well, but then complicated
things happened. First a baby appeared, then a woman (Hadley’s best friend)
entered their marriage life.

Maybe Kate
(Hadley’s friend before she married Ernest) was right from the beginning. Hadley
shouldn’t have married Ernest, for “he liked women very much”. But then, marriage
was what has saved Hadley’s life at that time, and she loved Ernest so much. To
marry a talented and ambitious writer means a sacrifice. For Hadley, it’s okay.
She could endure hours and days of loneliness when Ernest retreated into his
passionate writings. She could endure Ernest’s changing mood and unstable
emotion, including his war trauma. She could also endure the awkwardness being
a conservative among the moral lose people of the Lost Generation. She could endure
all those, as long as she still had Ernest’s love. So when Pauline Pfeiffer
stepped up and seduced Ernest to leave his former wife, everything collapsed. I
was so relieved that finally Hadley found a loving husband who led her to a
happy normal life.

World War I
has created what we now call the Lost
Generation, the disoriented and confused young men who survived the war.
But without it, we might never have talented writers such as Hemingway and
Fitzgerald. For Hemingway’s sharpness and intense writing, for instance, was
produced by what he had endured during the war. The war re-shaped his
character, along with his mother’s dominance during his adolescence. That’s why
he needed Hadley very much, for he found in her the sturdy rock where he could
hold on to every time the tempest of the past hit him to swallow him into its rolling
waves. So, in a way, we must thank Hadley Richardson for her role in Hemingway’s
earlier career, or else, we would never have been amused by The Sun Also Rises (the novel he was
writing when they were still married), A
Farewell to Arms, and his other famous novels.

Two thumbs
up to McLain who has written The Paris
Wife so vividly that for two weeks I was like transported to the 1920s Jazz
Age of Paris. She wrote as intense as Hemingway’s, and the ending made me
feeling wretched for hours after finishing it. I loved the bullfighting scenes
at Pamplona; Hemingway’s reaction reminded me of what I loved from The Old Man and the Sea and, vaguely,
from To Have and Have Not: the
intense and sharp description of a scene.

Five stars
for The Paris Wife! It has changed my
view towards Hemingway, and now I am eager to read more of his books, including
A Moveable Feast, which I have failed
when I read it five years ago. Sometimes reading the author’s bio (or semi bio
like this historical fiction) helps you understanding and accepting him as he
wanted to be.